Picking up the Peace s
by ScorplinginTraining
Summary: There's plenty of blame to go around. When the dust settles, who will extend the first olive branch?
1. Chapter 1

PICKING UP THE PEACE-S

 **AN: I'm working through the stages of grief over this whole cancellation crap. You'll be able to tell by the story, I'm in between anger and sadness at the moment. So, heavy angst warnings.**

 **I've been out of pocket for a few weeks and this little story is my attempt to jump back in. Apologies! I'm trying to get to all the reading and reviewing I owe the other authors in the fandom, but my typing fingers were twitching.**

 **I've got a couple of ideas for longer stories percolating. Actually, what I'd really like to do is rewrite the whole 4th season and end it the way I want! But that's probably not very practical and would be a little boring to read.**

 **xxxxxxxxxx**

' _It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a 197 IQ, must be in want of a woman to intellectually stimulate him.'_

Wait.

What?

Paige's eyes darted back to the start of the sentence. She frantically reread it, making sure Jane Austen hadn't, in fact, rewritten the first line of _Pride and Prejudice_ posthumously.

Nope.

Paige was evidently losing her mind.

Stupid book club.

Who was the idiot who thought it was a great idea to join the neighbors one night a week to discuss classic literature? Oh, yeah. It was her. _She_ was the idiot.

Because these days there were way too many long, quiet hours to fill and she'd felt almost compelled to find something to make the clock run faster in any way possible. She found if she ran herself ragged with busyness, she didn't have time to think about…

With a sigh, Paige dog-earred the page of the tatty, beat up paperback she'd found in a used book shop and dropped the hand holding it into her lap. She pushed her toes into the sand and stared out at the rolling surf.

' _Did you know around 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans? The Pacific is the largest one making up about 30%...'_

' _Roughly 94% of all life forms on the planet are aquatic.'_

' _Ocean water is approximately 3% salt.'_

Paige was definitely cracking up. She couldn't even enjoy a rare afternoon off at the beach without hearing Walter's voice in her head. And she was finding out, to her deep regret, that she really, really missed that voice.

Once again illustrating the reasons why she had trouble enjoying her leisure time.

Her mind would automatically jump to questions like it was now.

For example, how was Walter's constant litany of scientific facts any different from Drew yakking ad nauseum about baseball teams and his own brilliant plays, or Tim going on and on about his Navy SEAL buddies and their escapades? Or heaven help her, his love of free form jazz?

Just thinking about Tim's musical taste gave Paige a thumping headache. At least Walter spoke the same language as her son which was more than she could say for the other two men she'd allowed into Ralph's life.

She picked up her to-go coffee cup and took a sip. Blech! It had long ago grown cold. The bitter bite wasn't lessened by the cinnamon flavor.

 _He_ had always added cinnamon to her morning coffee no matter where they woke up. Walter was really good with the little details.

Was she harder on him than the others? Did she expect more from him? Or worse, did she expect him to change and fit into her mold of the perfect man? Did she give him impossible standards guaranteeing he would eventually screw up and disappoint her?

It grieved her to think that might've been the case.

Everything was such a mess now. Paige wanted to reach out. She was ready to listen. But she had no idea how to go about it. What could she say in the face of all that had happened?

More than ever, she realized it was dreadfully spiteful of her to start a company to compete with Scorpion for jobs. She could have gone back to work for Elia. Hell, she could've gone back to waitressing.

At the time she told herself Sylvester needed somewhere safe to work. That little bit of rationalization brought both companies to the brink of foreclosure. Her sales pitches and customer service were better, but Centipede lacked the quick thinking, leadership and rapid coding skills of Scorpion. Scorpion was efficient, but it lacked quality engineering and people skills. Currently both companies were floundering. And now every member of the whole fractured team was heading for unemployment.

Someone needed to extend an olive branch.

Paige slipped her phone out of her purse. She scrolled through her contacts and let her finger hover over the smiling picture of Walter. The image was a sad reminder of happier times.

oooooooooo

' _Tell me what you're feeling  
I can take the pain  
Tell me that you mean it  
That you won't leave again_

 _Tell me what your heart wants  
Such a simple thing  
My heart is like paper  
Yours is like a flame_

 _I can't make you see  
If you don't by now_ _  
_ _I'll get through these chains  
Some how, some how_

 _Take it if you want it  
I'm so tired I just don't care  
Can't you see how much you hurt me?  
It's like I wasn't there…_'

"Please turn down that noise," Walter barked irritably before he remembered it was a Saturday afternoon and he was all alone in the garage.

It wasn't that he was identifying a little too closely with the lyrics or anything like that. He just didn't appreciate the distraction. Period.

He'd never cared for popular music. Currently, he had even less of an interest because the songs often reminded him of _her_. _She_ loved music. Which was all the more reason to relish the quiet.

Florence must have left her Spotify playing again. The chemist insisted she needed background noise to work, especially when performing tedious or repetitive tasks. It drove Walter crazy. Plainly, her 'background noise' caused him to work less efficiently.

The Scorpion 2.0 leader shot up from his desk and stalked over to _Flo_ 's workstation. It was beside the point she hated the shortened version of her name. He was only thinking it. Most of the time. And besides, the abbreviation used fewer syllables and less time.

He easily bypassed her security and brought up the offending program. He briefly considered blocking the site from her computer to prevent future annoyance, but he caught himself just in time.

No, he couldn't afford to alienate another person right now. He had few enough friends left.

For a good, long while Walter thought he'd found the perfect niche. A place to belong where people would accept him and always stick by him. It was incredible to finally fit in, a concept he couldn't even conceive of when he was an isolated boy growing up in Ireland.

But it turned out those 'friends' were just like everybody else. When Walter made the mistake of opening up and letting other people in, they'd all bailed and tried to destroy his life's work in the process.

Yes, he'd fouled up in just about every discernable way. But they weren't exactly innocent either. And weren't real friends supposed to care about each other no matter what?

Enough of that.

Walter couldn't afford to allow the stupid, maudlin thoughts in. He must don his tough outer armor and throw himself into his work if he had any hope of saving his company. It was about the only meaningful thing he had left in his life.

He'd made a few casual overtures in the days following the demise of his relationship with Paige. Without exception, they'd been rebuffed. Thinking back, he probably shouldn't have led with the list of reasons why she was being ridiculous about the whole thing.

He'd simply been in shock. It had been his attempt to gloss over the issues and find a quick fix to repair his damaged 'family'.

Later, as all the details soaked in, Walter's fear and anger slowly died and left a howling, hollow agony deep inside when he realized Paige never really loved him for who and what he was. He was even more alone than he'd ever been.

Well, with the notable exception of Cabe. He was so grateful for Cabe's support. Without it, he might've lost himself entirely.

Other than the Homeland Agent, there was nothing left except Scorpion. Or the remnants of it. He had to salvage what he could.

Some days he was still tempted to try to reach out to Paige, however. Or at least Sylvester. Or maybe Toby and Happy.

His silent phone sat on the edge of his desk day after day and taunted him mercilessly.

Walter jumped when it suddenly rang with Paige's unmistakable ringtone.

 **AN:** **I blatantly plagiarized the opening line of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' (that book is apt because it's all about mistaken impressions and misjudgement) and I ripped off the opening lines of Ray LaMontagne's 'Such a Simple Thing' in this story. Every time I hear that song it reminds me of Walter.**


	2. Chapter 2

PICKING UP THE PEACE-S

 **AN: Here's the conclusion, folks. I went a different route this time. This is a great, big ball of emotions because they have to be dealt with before the practical stuff can be fixed. I decided to remind Paige exactly what she's missing and introduce the concept that if Waige is fixed, Team Scorpion will follow. That's kinda the inverse of something Happy said in Foul Balls.**

 **oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**

' _Oh, crap! Oh, crap! Oh, crap_!' Paige thought when she realized she'd accidentally pressed the call icon beside Walter's number on her phone's screen.

Panicking, she was about to disconnect when she caught his faint, faraway voice saying, "Hello? Paige? Is that you?"

It hit her all at once like a runaway subway train, a keen sense of relief just hearing the familiar sound of him.

She couldn't help herself.

Hesitantly, she brought the phone to her ear and listened while the hot tears stung her eyes. If she'd wanted to talk to him, it was now impossible to get the words out around the tightness of her throat.

So, Paige sat there like a paralyzed fool, listening to Walter breathe.

"Are you okay?" He asked after a few more seconds.

His quiet concern choked her up even more and a little sob escaped before she could catch it back.

"Paige? Is Ralph alright? What's the matter? Do you need me to come and get you?"

"I… m-miss you." She blubbered involuntarily, sniffling and whimpering like an idiot afterwards in a monumental effort to bring herself under control. Paige took a shaking breath. "I'm so-sorry I bothered you. I'll go…"

"No! Don't! Don't go," Walter blurted. Then he added a soft, "Please?" as an afterthought. "I, uh, I've miss you…too."

The silence fell again and stretched on while Paige scrambled for words she could push past her trembling lips. "I h-hate it. Everything is all wrong now," she finally managed to whisper, sounding strangled.

"Agreed," Walter returned.

After another loaded pause, she found herself asking, "Can I come over?"

Paige didn't even know where the request came from. This hadn't been a part of her plan. She hadn't even intended to call him, but she missed her friend even more than her lover. She missed his cool-headed, logical advice. She missed his back-handed compliments, his lame attempts to be romantic, his unintentional sweetness, his awkward affection. She positively ached without him. More than she realized until the moment she heard his voice on the other end of a stupid, accidental phone call.

Paige held her breath waiting for Walter to answer her impulsive question.

When he gave her a halting, "Oh… um, okay," she didn't stop to think. She barely took the time to respond with a hasty, "See you soon," before she hung up, crammed her things in her beach bag and hastened to her car.

Paige didn't care about the half pound of sand she was probably dumping in her car along with her bag and shoes. She didn't care that she was wind-blown or that she'd already cried off the minimum amount of make-up she'd half-heartedly applied that morning to cover the dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. In fact, she didn't allow herself stop to consider anything much at all. Refusing to even rehearse what she was going to say, she forced herself to concentrate on how right it felt to be heading toward the garage instead. It was exhilarating, like being freed after a long incarceration. Only she'd been her own jailer. And now she was going _home_.

oxoxoxoxoxo

His mouth open and slack, he stared at the phone in his hand as if it was an object he couldn't identify. He swallowed convulsively before unceremoniously dropping it face down on his desk.

Walter shot up to a standing position and spent a short eternity pacing around the ground floor of the garage, his mind racing and refusing to settle on one solid thought. The only coherent idea among the mass confusion centered on being both elated and terrified in anticipation of Paige's imminent arrival.

He would pick up objects and move them from shelf to shelf or desk to conference table and back with no real purpose.

After forever crept past, he heard her car pull up and he darted to the entrance, yanking it open. His eyes hungrily drank in the sight of her approach. He had no idea what any of this meant. Or what 'this' was at all.

When she was in front of him at last, he was tempted to reach out, grab her and clutch her against him, so he stuffed his hands in his front pants pockets and looked at her with a little worried frown between his brows.

"I'm confused," Walter murmured to himself, impressed that he was able to glean that much from the chaos racing around in his addled brain.

Her smile appeared nervous, her eyes looked tired, but she was never more lovely and vital to him than she was in that moment.

In the weeks since she'd left a gaping Paige-sized hole in his world, Walter didn't know quite how to behave anymore. It had been like trying to achieve balance with one leg missing. Seeing her now made the pieces fall into place, at least temporarily.

"That makes two of us. Can I come in?" She answered, her tone unsure.

"Oh. Of course," He stepped aside and she passed by him.

He briefly closed his eyes against the onslaught of memories her scent invoked. Walter pushed back against the wall of unwanted and mostly unidentified emotions her presence was causing, but they were as unmovable as the Santa Monica Mountains.

"Should… Should we, uh, sit?" Paige asked.

At his jerky nod, she perched on the edge of the couch and glanced up at him, eyebrows raised in anticipation.

Unable to stop staring at her, he also found himself incapable of making his feet move in her direction. She cleared her throat and patted the cushion beside her, breaking the spell.

Walter rushed over, banging his shin into the coffee table and sitting down hard beside her, causing her to fall against him. His arms went around her instinctively as he tried to steady them both.

"Sorry," Walter muttered, trying to extricate his limbs. But instead of leaping away from him, Paige momentarily settled against him with a sigh.

"Paige?" He said, holding himself a little stiffly and feeling even more puzzled.

She scooted back, untangling the two of them and giving him a slightly tremulous smile. "I guess we really need to talk, don't we?"

He had no idea what they needed. Except a maybe translator.

Before the quiet could become oppressive, Walter remembered Ralph's centrifuge and thought of a question he considered fairly safe to ask her, "Did, uh, Ralph leave something here that he needs?"

"Yes, Walter. And so did I." He couldn't interpret her demeanor, but Paige was looking both apprehensive and expectant as if she thought he should find a hidden meaning behind her reply.

"What? What did y-you, uh... h-he leave?"

Paige reached over and covered one of his hands with one of hers. His heart was beating so hard it was difficult to hear her. "You. We left you here."

Walter disengaged his hand and scooted away. Away from her warmth. Away from the contact. Away from her mystifying words. "I don't understand. You need to be clearer, Paige. I thought trying to be with me exhausted you. I thought I was too emotionally immature. You said I bored you lecturing about parsley and marine biology…"

Paige turned anxious eyes to him. "I did say those things. They were hateful and rude. But worse, they weren't true. I mean, there's a grain of truth… The thing is, I brought up traits that can occasionally be mildly annoying to me. Mostly I was just striking back with things I knew would hurt you because I was hurt and angry. Who was being emotionally immature then? The fact is, those same traits are some of the things I miss the most."

Walter shook his head, more perplexed than ever.

Paige continued, "I really messed up. You have a tendency to believe I have all the answers and that I always act in emotionally healthy ways. What you fail to see is how fallible I can be. I sometimes make terrible mistakes and react poorly when I'm emotional. I was irrational and mean-spirited toward you because I was so upset. But in actuality, I encouraged you to be dishonest then I got mad when you were dishonest. When you tried to point out the flaws in my logic, I only got angrier. I knew you didn't have romantic feelings for Florence. But I have issues with insecurity and I was always afraid you would eventually leave me. It's happened to me a lot in my life. Turns out I was the one always ready to cut out on you."

"You also have no trouble admitting how much you need me. What no one ever seems to acknowledge is exactly how much I need you too. How much I counted on you. I never realized how much I relied on your advice and help when it comes to my son. You have no idea how many times I wanted to call you and ask you to talk over something with him or explain to me what he's thinking. Walter, you've been invaluable to me in that regard."

"It's not just that. I got used to you seeing things rationally when I'd get anxious over finances or business decisions or parenting. You've been my best friend for years. You never judged me harshly and you can be so reassuring and calming. And if I'm going to be _really_ honest here, I got used to being adored. Oh Walter, no one else has ever loved me half so well! There was never a time when we were together that I didn't know how much you loved me, how much you thought of me, how much you needed me. You may not be very expressive, but I could see it in the way you treated me. I took that for granted. I'm sorry."

Paige's gaze dropped to her lap. It was Walter's turn to reach for her hand. He cautiously curled his fingers around hers.

"So, what do we do now?" He asked quietly.

Her smile became sad as her eyes drifted up and her gaze met his again. "What do you want to do? Would you be willing to take another chance on us? Do you think we can work everything out in spite of our differences?"

"Yes. I would like to try. It's not logical, but nothing has been right since you left. Even though it's the definition of insanity to try the same thing and expect a different outcome."

Paige grinned and squeezed his hand. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe if we change a few things this time around, it's not too insane. How about let's start with open communication and see how it goes?"

She leaned against his shoulder and they took a minute to bask in the closeness and let the peace of it settle around them. Everything made sense again.

After a moment, Walter inquired, "If I apologize to everyone, do you think we could reunite the team too? Will you help me over any rough spots?"

Paige kissed his cheek gently. "I think they'll jump at the chance. Especially if we approach them together. But let's wait on that until Monday, if you don't mind."

Walter frowned, once again confused. He thought Paige would want the whole family back under the same roof as soon as possible. "Really? What for?"

"Because I kinda want to keep you to myself for a little while. I'd like to introduce you to something new in the EQ arena."

"I'm always willing to learn new things. What is it?" Walter nodded eagerly.

Her expression was wily as she whispered seductively in his ear, "The wonderful concept of make up sex."


End file.
